Criminal defense
lawyer Andrew M. Stein said yesterday he will definitely be a candidate for the
Los Angeles Superior Court seat now held by Judge Rex Heeseman.

Stein, who had
filed a declaration of intent to run in that contest last week, hedged his bet
early Monday by also filing for the seat now held by Judge Ronald Sohigian.
Former state Senate Majority Leader Charles Calderon shook up that race when he
filed his declaration of intent last Thursday.

But Stein said yesterday
he was going to stick with his original plan, which will pit him against Deputy
District Attorney Steven Schreiner and Assistant City Attorney Tom Griego. And
he touted the endorsement of former District Attorney Steve Cooley.

‘Skilled Lawyer’
and Friend

The county’s
former chief prosecutor told the MetNews he had endorsed the former president
of the Criminal Courts Bar Association because Stein is a friend as well as a
“skilled lawyer.” Stein, he predicted, would “do what many lawyers do when they
become judges, be a good neutral and run an efficient courtroom and make good
judicial decisions.”

As for the
deputy district attorney in that race, Cooley said he does not know Schreiner
personally and had not been asked to endorse him. “I always reserve the right
to co-endorse if I choose to do so,” he added.

With Stein out
of the way, the remaining potential opponents to Calderon include Deputy
District Attorneys Amy Carter, Efrain Aceves, Carol Rose, and Helen Kim. But it
appears that only one or two of those will actually run in that race.

Candidates for
judge may file multiple declarations of intent, but must commit to a specific
race by returning nominating documents by the end of the nominating period,
which this year is on March 7.

Many Seats

Carter filed
declarations of intent to run for four seats, but has only taken out the
nominating documents for one of them, the seat from which Judge Michael Solner
is retiring next week. She said Monday she was “99.9 percent sure” that was the
race she would run in.

Kim filed in
eight seats, but seemed unlikely to run in a large field. The other contests in
which she filed had only one or two potential opponents.

Aceves, the
first candidate to file for the seat, and the only prosecutor to do so before
Monday, expressed frustration with the way events unfolded in the last days of
the declaration-of-intent period.

It was
upsetting, he said, that “career politicians are seeking to come in and buy a
race,” and that “our D.A.s treat this office so politically, [when it] should
be above all these types of politics.” He said he was “not sure” whether he
would stay in the race.

That left Rose
as the only candidate saying she would definitely run against Calderon.

She noted that
she has about 37 years of litigation experience, having practiced civil law for
three years before joining the District Attorney’s Office. She said she has had
“well over 500 jury trials” and has spoken and been interviewed by various
media outlets as an expert on childhood sexual abuse and sexual harassment, and
has been an adjunct professor at UCLA and Loyola law schools.

She also served
on the county’s Judicial Procedures Commission. She said she has just retained
David Gould as her campaign consultant.

Former Referee

In other news,
attorney and former Superior Court Referee Pamala Matsumoto—another last-day
filer—confirmed that she intends to return papers for the Solner seat, setting
up a likely head-to-head confrontation with Carter.

Matsumoto was
among more than a dozen referees laid off in July 2012, and subsequently served
as a short-term administrative law judge, hearing benefits cases. That
assignment ended last August, and she recently took a job doing insurance
defense work.

She said she did
not know how much money she will be able to raise for a race against Carter,
who has reported having more than $500,000 on hand. Matusmoto said she would
not hire a campaign consultant.